


Unmentionables

by SanSanFanFan



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Aziraphale is reading something unexpected, Crowley gets the wrong end of the stick, M/M, Socks ensue, Someone makes an effort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-08
Updated: 2019-06-08
Packaged: 2020-04-23 02:54:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,464
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19142128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SanSanFanFan/pseuds/SanSanFanFan
Summary: He pauses after the door has silently let him into Aziaraphale’s den of books. It is comfortably dark in the shop, but nothing his serpent eyes can’t deal with. It doesn’t matter though because Aziraphale near enough glows with blessed, happy, light, as he sits there flicking through a… that’s not a book!Yellow eyes narrow behind sunglasses, and Crowley just about makes out some shiny, colourful, thin pamphlet before Aziraphale startles, spotting him, and quickly slides the item away beneath another ‘proper’ book as red roses bloom in his cheeks.But for a moment there had been pure and utter temptation in the angel’s eyes!





	Unmentionables

He dulls the light clang of the bell just as it begins, preferring to slink into his friend’s book shop unannounced today. And Crowley always was particularly good at slinking.

Since the almost apocalypse, a few weeks back now, they’ve settled into a small but pleasant routine. Dinners, lunches, chats on a park bench. And most afternoons Crowley finds himself wandering into Soho to get a bitter black coffee and a far too sweet hot chocolate from the Italian café around the corner. He then happens to pass by the place with fabulous baklava that Aziraphale adores. Almost every day, to keep his hand in, he also gathers a small group of humans, tempted by the wondrous smell of almond filled pastries that follows him as he saunters down the street.

But as always, he takes most of the small supply for him and the angel and leaves them there, bickering the remains. It’s a pretty petty annoyance by Crowley’s normal standards. Hardly up there with his most famous works, like the M25, or those electronic checks that exist to make sure that you’re a human and not a robot by turning you into a form filling automaton. It's enough though for a post-apocalyptic world where heaven and hell are still occupied with working out what happens next in the Great Plan.

Today though, he’s not burst in as he has done before, waving the sweetly soggy bag of treats and the drinks in their cardboard holder and getting a radiant smile in return from the angel sat at his paper swamped antique desk. Usually, he adores that smile, but today he is suddenly taken with the idea of just watching him concentrating on whatever precious text he’s just received. He wants to see the sky blue of his eyes focussed intently - creases forming in the pale pink skin between his eyebrows - on some collection of botanical frontispieces or some other dusty old thing. Adoring the book as he caresses the pages as he turns them. He _wants_ to see that look turned towards him.

At the moment that he’d fully realised what he’d wanted, crissing and crossing through the maze of Soho, he’d flung a curse at a passing pigeon. Its resulting diarrhoea was going to cause a lot more curses in its turn, but it really made him feel no better.

Sighing, he’d adjusted to the realisation that he was, in terms the humans might use, ‘gone’. Really though he’d had a good six thousand years to adjust, even if choices like this one – to just gormlessly watch his friend’s adoration of a bloody book like a fool – still sometimes made him want to kick himself for his damned stupidity. Or to curse a passing pigeon.

He pauses after the door has silently let him into Aziaraphale’s den of books. It is comfortably dark in the shop, but nothing his serpent eyes can’t deal with. It doesn’t matter though because Aziraphale near enough glows with blessed, happy, light, as he sits there flicking through a… that’s not a _book!_

Yellow eyes narrow behind sunglasses, and Crowley just about makes out some shiny, colourful, thin pamphlet before Aziraphale startles, spotting him, and quickly slides the item away beneath another ‘proper’ book as red roses bloom in his cheeks.

But for a moment there had been pure and utter temptation in the angel’s eyes!

Crowley raises the bag and the holder, but there’s little enthusiasm in the action. The angel was hiding something from him. Something he wanted.

“My dear! It's that time already?! I don’t think I heard the bell-”

“I got the ones you like. All of them.” Crowley slinks closer to the desk, trying to spot Aziraphale’s secret reading matter. There’s a corner of it, wedged underneath some dusty old tome…

The normal hubbub of the streets outside is broken by sudden squeals and groans as a reluctant little rain cloud finds itself nudged into central London and then poked and prodded until it releases its stored water right onto the heads of a thousand tourists. Several of them barrel into the quaint little book shop – “look, its just like ‘arry Potter!” – shaking wet hair and ringing out shorts and t-shirts that had until then been perfect for the time of year.

“Oh dear!” exclaims the angel, his face paling as he panics about every single one of the hundreds of thousands of drops of water heading for his books. Of course, each one will miraculously follow a path away from the pages of Zira’s books, but he doesn’t know that. A few minor temptations later and the angel is scurrying from customer to customer, shooting Crowley apologetic looks, telling them that, no, he does not have the latest _Dan Brown_ in stock.

“Don’t worry angel. I’ll keep the drinks hot.” Crowley says, and in one fluid motion he puts them down on the desk and sweeps up the pamphlet thing to secrete it in an inner pocket of his jacket that opens into a little dimension only he can access. It feels a bit like jumping into a holy water paddling pool not leaving immediately to look at Aziraphale’s new temptation, but he handles the jitters and tries to cool his heels as the angel ably deals with the soggy tourists, ushers them out, and returns to him.

“Cheers, my dear!” Aziraphale says warmly as he raises his hot chocolate for a toast. Its one of many that they’ve shared over the years, but since the Ritz, they’ve felt… different. To Crowley at least. Every time he says ‘cheers’ in return now it feels like words are doubled up, with a pocket dimension of their own. As though deep down inside them are three more words, he wishes he could say.

“Cheers, angel.”

Aziraphale near giggles with glee as he peers into the sweetly sticky bags of baklava. Plates appear, and he portions them out equally. Both of them know that Crowley will sip his coffee for a bit before leaving most of it, all the while the angel eyes up his share. Crowley will eventually offer them to him, and after much protestation, Aziraphale will take them. And every time it happens, this game of mock temptation, their eyes meeting over a plate of treats, Crowley feels something aching in his chest.

But not today.

“Here, angel, take them, I’ve probably got to get on.” He pushes the plate towards him and his share.

“Oh, I really couldn’t! Oh no, I mustn-”

But Crowley is already getting up from his chair. “See you later.”

“Of course-”

He thinks he hears a note of disappointment in the angel’s voice, and it echoes after him as the Bentley whisks him through the labyrinth of Soho and pulls up outside the dull grey building where his dark flat is. Once inside, he rushes past the trembling plants and sits on his tacky throne, hunched over the temptation he’s stolen from his angel. He lets his wings unfurl to cover him in yet more shadow before he pulls it from its hiding place.

More storm clouds whisk across the Thames skyline as his brow furrows, staring at it.

He takes his glasses off for a better look, the black irises in his yellow eyes turning from sharp lines to black holes.

“What in heave- hell’s- _Earth’s_ name is this?!”

He knows perfectly well, of course. He recognises it as one of his ideas.

It was one of those free catalogues that fell out of the Sunday papers along with multitudes of its mates – flyers for stairlifts, folded ads for teeth whitening services, pictures of conservatories with recommendations by far too happy middle Englanders – all of them flying off at weird angles and causing backaches for the poor sods who had to pick them up again. Another one of his bright ideas from the middle-ish of the twentieth century.

Many of the catalogues that fell out of the papers with the rest of the snowdrift of flyers were for boring, sensible bed sheets, or boring, sensible clothes. This one… this one was for boring, sensible underwear.

Underwear. Pants. Knickers. Boxer shorts. Brassieres. Underthings. Undergarments. _Unmentionables._

Several curses flung from Crowley’s thin lips scorched the leaves of a couple of nearby Swiss Cheese Plants that immediately resigned themselves to their eventual fates and said their goodbyes to the rest.

“This… _this_ is what tempts him?!” Crowley’s brows knitted. “In the middle of Soho, surrounded by all the naked humans, any person could desire?! And he looks at human women in floor-length nighties!”

He humphed dismissively and flung the catalogue onto a nearby table, continuing his movement onwards to fly his leg over the arm of the throne and to cover his glowing eyes with a dramatic arm.

In the stillness that followed, the only sound came from the remaining shivering plants. And then, a creak in the throne as Crowley leant forward to pick up the catalogue again and look at the first few pages. There were women in pants and bras, but they were substantial looking items of clothing that suggested control and containment rather than allure. Some wore something a shuddering part of his mind told him was called ‘flannelette’.

“It’s like the last few centuries never happened. Of course, when it comes to fashion, they never happened to him either!” He snapped, immediately feeling bad about it. But a suspicion grew in his stomach, churning up his insides even worse.

“Or… Is it the women themselves? They have those pillow-like parts… breasts. And… rounded hips.” He waved a hand, and a wall opposite turned to liquid silver before freezing into a mirror. Yellow eyes looked at the lanky figure sprawled over the throne. He’d been a serpent, and while good at curving around things, snakes themselves did not have curves as such.

He launched himself from the throne with a low growl to stand straight in front of the mirror. His corporeal form had never been of much interest to him before. It got him from A to B, and it always looked good in black. His face was sharp and pointed, and there were his eyes of course… but what did he care? ‘Handsomeness’ or ‘beauty’ had not been a concern for him before… ever.

He held up the catalogue and looked at the women again. It was doable, of course. He’d lived for just over a decade as a nanny for Warlock, and presenting himself as a woman had made sense for the role.

His clothes disappeared suddenly, leaving his bare form for his eyes to glare at. He was lean, snake-hipped – of course – and closer to male in appearance than anything else, but it was all pretty optional when you got down to it. But… but if he was really forced to say, he’d had this corporeal form for six thousand years, and still kind of wanted it. He wasn’t so much fond of it as used to it.

“I’d not want him to change his.” He said in a low voice. “I’m used to his too.”

He flicked from the women in bras to the men in their pants. In rushing the catalogue into its hiding place, it’d all been a bit scrunched, so there was no way to know which pages were the most thumbed. If it had been the women or the men that Aziraphale had been drooling over.

“No. He wasn’t drooling. He was dreaming.” He corrected himself, feeling bad for even thinking of his friend in such a negative light. The angel had been transported by something he’d seen in here.

Crowley looked critically at the men in the catalogue and then at himself in the mirror again. They had those things… what did they call them these days?

“Six packs. Eight packs? Packs of eight?”

That rearrangement of muscles was easy enough to do. Same with the square jaws the models all seemed to have. He looked critically at his own sharp jawline, turning his head this way and that.

“Doable. But so much duller. Uninteresting.” He scoffed. “No character. I’ve got character! I’ve got a face with a point!”

Suddenly Aziraphale’s twinkling blue eyes and rounded features came to mind. He had character too — sweet, adorable, character. Crowley groaned in despair.

“Gone. I’m gone.” He muttered as he flicked through a few more pages, tutting at the blandness sameness of the men, all of them standing in just their unmentionables with same cocky confidence-

“Oh, in the name of Sata- Go- Heav- oh for goodn-!” Crowley gave up on names in the human tongue and cursed in the old deep language. A plant caught fire and was instantly put out by a glare.

They had genitals! Of course, they bloody did. Although, in some cases, he suspected that they had socks as well as cocks, but it was a piece of advertising, and he couldn’t blame them for trying.

Crowley, however, did not have either down there.

Again, it was all possible for angels, even fallen ones. It was just a matter of making an effort. But he’d never even thought to bother before. Sure, there were demons whose nine to five was all about using whatever _tools_ were at their disposal in the never-ending game of 'tempt the human'. Succubi, Incubi. Even the odd imp dabbled in it. But it was just too easy! Humans were always at it anyway!

And Crowley had never understood taking the time to creep into the cell of a single monk in Monastery A to make him desecrate his sheets when you could set Monastery A against Monastery B and get them all. Beer was usually the best way. Brewers were always a little bit proud of their work, but get one monastery in competition with the other, and soon enough they’d be falling to temptation and burning down the other’s hop fields in the night.

He looked critically at himself again, then at the men in the catalogue. And then at the women. And then at the men.

“Damn me! I need to know what he wants!”

He jumped as the phone rang. In the few steps to where it sat in its sleek black cradle, he’d replaced his usual clothes and put away all thoughts of… socks.

But it was Aziraphale. Of course, it was Aziraphale! And the confident voice he’d used to answer the phone was silenced. Luckily the angel was babbling and not listening to the silence.

“My dear! Um, sorry for earlier, what a sudden rush! You know how it is!” Aziraphale rushed the words out quickly, “But I think you might have seen something of mine and I wanted to-”

Crowley found his voice again, “Oh yes, I’ve seen your ‘something’.”

“Oh, dear. Well, perhaps you could return to the shop, and I could explain. Oh, this is all very unfortunate, and I never wanted to make you uncomfortable.”

“No, its better that I know what you bloody want?! Isn’t it?!”

There was a pause, and Crowley wondered if the angel was stood there in his shop with his mouth in a perfect ‘o’ shape of shock.

“Crowley… it sounds like… it sounds like you don’t want the same thing. Please, my friend, let us meet and talk about it.”

Crowley’s head was spinning. Aziraphale sounded disappointed, sad. The angel wanted Crowley to want the same thing? Did he mean… did he mean, with _him?_

“I’ll meet you at the shop!”

In all of history, there have only been few things (1) that were faster than the time it took Crowley to quickly manifest two lots of ‘unmentionables’ – a pair of somethings to wear under his usual tight black jeans and a ‘sock’ to go in them. For the former, he’d gone for the plain black boxers from page four after quickly scanning the first few pages again before stuffing the catalogue back in his pocket dimension. For latter, he’d come up with something he thought had enough character to match the rest of him.

The Bentley near broke the sound barrier getting him there, and Crowley gave it a final shove as he barged into the shop.

“Crowley!” Aziraphale stood waiting for him, nervous fingers tangling over the buttons of his waistcoat. “You look distressed. Please let me explain-”

“No need angel!” Crowley reached into his demonic past and pulled out what he hoped was a seductive smile. He threw open his arms and tried out an even sexier saunter as he walked towards Aziraphale. “I completely understand!”

Aziraphale’s panicked face relaxed into its natural softness, and Crowley could not take his eyes from his friend’s lips as he stalked him across the busy book shop. Parts of him that had not existed until very recently were also paying attention to the object of his devotion.

“Oh! I am glad!” He clasped his hands and smiled “On the phone, I thought maybe it had made you cross.”

“Cross? No, angel. I am not cross.”

“Ah good, I was embarrassed knowing that you had seen it. I know it’s not even a terribly good likeness…”

Crowley’s sexy, seductive, walk halted abruptly, and he stumbled a little. “Likeness?”

“The catalogue…?”

Crowley withdrew it from its pocket dimension and tried to flatten it out. It occurred to him suddenly that he’d never actually gone through all the pages. He did so.

“I see.”

He saw.

“A silly little thing, you see.  A frivolity.” Aziraphale looked nervous again. “Just a little daydream.”

Crowley saw now that on one of the later pages, dedicated to men’s sleepwear, one of the models had been altered by the simple but precise movement of a few molecules of ink along the range of the spectrum of light. The square jaw was a little sharper. The hair was a dark flame red. The man’s muscles had been slimmed, along with the rest of him, to make him lean. Snake-hipped and bare-chested in a pair of rather sharply ironed blue striped pyjama bottoms. The sunglasses that now covered his eyes were not half as adorable as the two, much too small, black wings hovering just beyond his shoulders.

“It's me.”

“Yes.” Aziraphale’s voice squeaked out. “Just a doodle. A… a…”

“Fanart?” Crowley said, being far more familiar with the corners and recesses of the Internet (2)

“Yes!” Aziraphale beamed. “I am of course an ardent… _fan_.”

Crowley smiled ruefully, ignoring the host of biological impulses that had come with his ‘effort’ and which were currently responding to his friend's fervent words. “I’m sorry I’ve been stupid. I thought you wanted something… I thought I saw temptation in your face.”

Aziraphale glows bright, both red of cheek and with celestial energy. “But Crowley… it’s you and me.”

He looks again and sees then that on the next page there a similar reworking of a fairer haired man. He’s lounging by a kitchen island, casually drinking coffee in a pair of pyjamas – tops and bottoms this time – and smiling broadly. The hair has been lightened, the stomach softened, the face rounded. And again, there’s the small pair of angel wings. But what’s really bloody adorable is the way the two models have obviously been flipped so that they now face each other across the crease of the catalogue, as though they’re sharing a joke over a morning cup.

“This is what you want, angel?” He’s stunned and a little embarrassed to have rushed into making an effort without finding out for sure.

Aziraphale steps closer, growing in confidence as he sees the red now rising on Crowley’s cheeks as well. “Mornings with you? Yes, my dear. Afternoons of treats and hot drinks as well of course. And evenings.”

Crowley stares into his angel’s eyes, completely, and utterly, gone. “Then you shall have them.”

Aziraphale smiles broadly before something Crowley can only describe as a little ‘incubic’ starts to shine in his eyes before he asks softly, inches away from Crowley’s characterful face.

“And _nights?_ Those too?"

Crowley’s stomach flips, and something lower down does its own gymnastics.

“My dear, mornings with pyjamas start with nights. And I do believe that you would look rather good in those bottoms…” He points to the ‘Crowley’ in the catalogue.

“Order them,” Crowley growls and takes his angel’s hand to pull him even closer.

 

(1)    The creation of everything (it took God rather less than six days, but She doesn’t like to brag), a New York second, and the time it takes to notice the typoes in your story after you post it online.

(2)    He claimed responsibility with them downstairs for many of those corners and recesses, but what usually happened was he stumbled into them and then backed away… very, very quietly.


End file.
